masterminis.net - where we learn to be a better painter!

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Join us this Wednesday evening for another publicly broadcasted private conversation, this time with Justin Tan of "Arcane Factories" from Vancouver, Canada!

Arcane Factories will be starting their very own Kickstarter campaign next week - mark the date in your calendar - on May 3rd.

Head over to their Facebook page and check out how you can decide on which miniatures will be part of the campaign and even WIN free loot in the process!

Good stuff!

The show will be on Wednesday night at 7pm CET (6pm GMT/1pm CET/10am PST/3am+1 JST) - here are all the details and links:

Here are the Google+ Event page and the Youtube Link for the show. Many of you wrote me that you enjoy listening to us babbling while painting or working on projects - give it a shot :D

Also - if you are a gamer on a budget, check out this ingenious idea for portable wargaming tables by our Bruddha Matteo Albertini from 4thWar Equipment. His kickstarter is live right now:

Head over to his Facebook-page to not miss anything regarding this campaign. I think this should receive some sort of 'Genius' award :D

And last but not least: As announced yesterday, our DVD sets for Season 1.2 and 1.3 are at the replicator right now. We will start shipping in about 2 weeks!While that is good news, this means that the end of the 'early BEARD special' is neigh! Not only can you still save money by pre-ordering, but also will only pre-orderers receive the secret stretch-goals of our campaign!

Monday, April 28, 2014

It is done! The DVDs are at the replicator right now and we are looking at around 12-14 days production turnaround. So it is fair to say that we will be shipping out your pre-orders very soon™!

The decision to put 3 DVDs into Season 1.3 meant that we had to delay our production by about 5 weeks - but we all are absolutely convinced that this was the right decision. Rather than cutting hours of valuable material from the DVDs we have created a set that we feel is really, really good ;)

Season 1.2 - Freehands and Banners with Stephan Rath remained at the 2 scheduled DVDs and we are excited to show you all of the new things we learned about editing, 3D animations and and and...

If you liked Season 1.1, get ready to fall in love with Season 1.2 and 1.3!

Early-BEARD-Special & Stretch Goals running out

Until we are ready to ship your pre-orders in about two weeks time, you can still order the sets at our special Early-BEARD-price and secure all of the SECRET stretch-goals that we had planned to say 'thank you' to all of you who supported us with their pre-orders.

Now the secret is out - but time is running out: After we ship season 1.2 and 1.3, both the pre-order early beard price as well as the stretch-goals are gone.

The next step for us is to contact all of our pre-order supporters with more details on their orders via email. This is scheduled to take place next week.

Everyone who pre-ordered our DVD will be able to VOTE on which of the Basing Alchemy elements (Fire, Wind, Water) we will be producing for you next!

After all - we do this for you ;)

Looking for retailers

Also next week, we will start to look for brick-and-mortar retaliers, the famous "FLGS" (friendly local gaming store) who would be interested in carrying our products.Independent hobby stores are very important to us as we believe that they are the backbone and the future of our hobby.

We have some pretty crazy ideas for what others call their 'terms of trade' and we would like to talk to a few store owners about our ideas to 'test the water'. So, if you own a brick-and-mortar hobby store and would be interested in what we have in store for you - you can contact us here.

If you have a hobby store in your area, why not tell them about us? It could save you shipping & handling from Germany in the future! I am sure we come up with something great for those of you who refer an independent hobby store to us! ;)

Post-season

You can already get excited about our next big projects, and we are not just talking about more DVD sets!

Among our projects is our cooperation with Jeremy Glen's Creature Caster Kickstarter Campaign - Check it out to see how we are helping him get his business started.

Our next campaign update is scheduled for tonight at 7pm CET / 6pm GMT. Here is the Hangout-Link. As always we will answer your questions during the show - don't miss it! ;)

On Wednesday we will introduce you to Justin Tan, owner of Arcane Factories - a new company with some really fresh designs. Justin is a really nice guy, coincidentally, like Jeremy, he is from Vancouver, Canada. Time for another Beeble-Babble! ;)

Friday, April 11, 2014

Zaphod: "A president never posts late, Mr. Frodo! He always posts precisely when he intends too!"

It's still Stretchgoal Thursday in Honolulu! For another 2 hours and 42 minutes!

Super Secret Stretchgoals

You all know Kickstarter & Co where, with the more money you raise, the more stretch-goals you unlock.

Well, our 'Early Beard' specials actually save you money. By pre-ordering, you all are able to get our products cheaper than at normal retail. The 'Early Beard' deals will be available until we can ship our new Season 1.2/1.3 DVD sets - so it is not a bad idea to support us now rather than, let's say in 3 weeks...

Just sayin'...

But of course, we wanted to thank all of you who put their trust in us by pre-ordering their sets. So we came up with the idea of super-secret stretch-goals!

Two of the stretch-goals made it into the 'standard' product, even after the Early Beard Phase:

Postcards & Stickers

We have designed the first 21 of 42 collectible stickers - for the standard order you will receive 4 stickers - one of them will have a special, still secret function (look at the postcard and you might find out what it is). Pre-orders will receive 7 stickers, including the magical one!

The postcard to the right has a very special function - you may guess it - and it will unlock some awesome free loot for you in the future.

Plus it will be fun! :D Our 100 pre-orders goal.

Here is what every person who pre-orders before the release date will receive. Not available for sale, not available outside of pre-orders or special events.

In short - stuff, money can't buy. Ever.

The revolutionary new sculpting putty

BeeSPutty Sample

Our buddy Stefan, inventor of the brand-new BeeSPutty, the new - and I want to say 'superior' sculpting putty - has created a special Painting Buddha Sample for all of you who pre-ordered.

It could be the beginning of a beautiful sculpting career!

Mati, our in-house sculptor and fire prevention officer says this about BeeSPutty: "BeeSPutty holds details and sharp edges better than other sculpting putties. The biggest advantage over all other putties is that you don't need to cover your armatures with any other putty first. BeeSPutty goes all the way! I really like working with it!"

This stretch-goal was unlocked by reaching 210 pre-orders.

Since it is a free sample, you won't be able to sculpt a whole army with it. But certainly enough to sculpt something like our next stretchgoal:

First Batch of our special eventminiature "Randalf Streisand"

Exclusive Randalf Streisand miniature

We decided that - if we were to reach 4242 likes on Facebook before we release the DVDs, we will offer a free miniature to you as our Special Thank You to all of you who SHARE & ENJOY what we do!

We reached 4242 last week. Now we are at 4889 likes.

THANK YOU so much for SHARING & ENJOYING!

So here he is: Introducing Randalf Streisand!

This friendly little Goblin in 32mm scale will be a joy to paint - and might even join your favorite army as the chief mechanic!

And we wouldn't be Painting Buddhas, if there wasn't a biiiig secret surrounding Randalf.

We are sure this is not the last time you hear of him!

That's how we roll

We were overwhelmed with your support of our Season 1.1 - which is almost sold out and not available in the shop anymore (we needed to reserve some for our Bundle pre-orders, but even those are going fast now!).

We were ever more overwhelmed with your support of our Season 1.2 and 1.3 DVD sets. We did not expect that kind of feedback and encouragement!

So we try to be a little bit like the Spanish Inquisition: No-body expects a company to add free stuff after the customer already paid!" :D

We hope you like these little stretch-goals. They all come from our nerdy hearts!

Thank you for your support and for making everything we do possible!

And thank you for SHARING & ENJOYING! That is what probably supports us the most!

Soon™The decision to go for three DVDs for Season 1.3 instead of the advertised two DVDs as well as the decision to introduce more subtitles meant about a month of extra work for four people full time (don't forget to add all the work of our Captains and Bable Fishes!).

Was it worth delaying the release by about a month? Hell, yes! You will get way more than you expected! (secret Stretchgoals still to be announced :D)

We are going through the final quality control of everything right now - you can trust that we will take our time making everything as close to perfect as we can.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Many of you know that not only everything we do at Painting Buddha revolves around the number 42, but for me personally, 42 is a very special number. If you don't know why 42 is special in any way, you should read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams!

But what does it all mean?

Well, it really doesn't mean anything, BUT since we eat, sleep and breath 42, reaching 4242 like-minded friends on Facebook is actually a mark that we were looking forward to for weeks now. And now it's here! THANK YOU so much! We <3 You! :D

So, is there a party going on now or something?

Matt & Ben during the Interview on Season 1.3.

Not really. We are too busy!

We are finalizing our Season 1.2 and 1.3 DVD sets right now - we are in the middle of Quality Control - and we simply have got no time for celebrations :D

The DVDs are scheduled to be sent to the manufacturer next week, and as soon as we hear back from them, we can finally tell you the release date!

As we wrote on this blog earlier, we decided to include THREE and not two DVDs on Season 1.3 - Base Alchemy 1: Earth with Ben Komets & Matt Cexwish. We had too much cool material and did not dare to cut it from your final DVD set! The price stayed the same, we just decided to add 50% more content! :D

Right now, you can still save money on the pre-order "Early BEARD Special". As soon as the DVDs are released you would have to pay the full retail. Just sayin' ;)

Season 1.1 sold out?

We received quite a few emails asking about where the Season 1.1 sets in our shop went. In short, the Supporter Box and Budget Box are 'sold out' right now.

Having said that, we have reserved a certain amount for the pre-orders of either of the Bundles (Mega-Bundle and Bundle of Love). Some more have been reserved for the many retailers that contacted us, interested in carrying our DVDs.

After the release of 1.2 and 1.3 we will check whether we can have the remaining few DVD sets for Season 1.1 released in its Budget/Supporter form again - and of course will do so, if possible!

But wait, there's more!

Season 1.2 and 1.3 are a technological step up from 1.1!Thanks to all of YOU who sent us their Feedback on 1.1!

Unlike crowdfunding campaigns, we have 'secret' stretchgoals. And by hitting 4242 likes on Facebook, you have already unlocked another major one! We wanted to thank you for your incredible support over the last year and for your continued friendship! So on Tuesday next week, we'll tell you what you will get on top of your pre-orders!

"So you are saying that we don't only get the 1.2 and 1.3 DVD sets, but more?"

That is EXACTLY what we are saying. ;)

Great things are afoot.

Tonight at 7pm CET: BEEBLE・BABBLE #3 with Creature Caster Jeremy Glen.You do NOT want to miss this as Jeremy and I have a VERY special announcement to make for his April 19th Kickstarter campaign.

Wednesday: We will reveal which languages we have subtitled for our 1.2 and 1.3 DVD sets, the names of Captains & Bablefishes and their glorious spaceships!

If you have seen our first BEEBLE・BABBLE ever, you know why we are happy to support Jeremy's new Company "Creature Caster". He is a really nice guy with a passion for miniatures. Or rather, Maxiatures.

Since our little talk-show, I have been in contact with Jeremy regularly and I can only tell you that supporting someone who eats, sleeps and breathes our hobby like Jeremy is an honor and a privilege.

This won't be one of those 'pay-now-and-get-everything-a-year-later-maybe' Kickstarter campaigns. Jeremy has a very fresh and healthy approach on how to run his own Kickstarter - and I like it! We'll talk about this more in our show.

In our show, we promised that Jeremy would be back as soon as we knew when the Kickstarter campaign would start. He announced it this morning and we immediately scheduled our next show!

So let's listen to Jeremy as he announces the Launch Date for the Kickstarter campaign on his Youtube Channel:

Friday Night - time to be announced.

So this Friday we will give you all the latest news about this extraordinary Kickstarter, irresistible stretch goals, pledge levels and - of course - talk about everything that you won't find anywhere else: Exclusive behind-the-scenes details and secrets!ALSO we will be telling you for the first time about our very own SECRET stretch-goals that all of our pre-order supporters for Season 1.2 and 1.3 will receive with their order! That's right! Everyone will get more than they expect - not only the 3 instead of 2 DVDs for Season 1.3! More on that on Friday!

The time of the show is not 100% decided yet, but it will be between 6pm and 8pm CET (7pm/9pm GMT). I will announced the final time here and on our Facebook page.

As always, we will take live questions during the show! It will be entertaining and I am sure you don't want to miss it ;) And we have a VERY SPECIAL announcement that I just confirmed with Jeremy this morning.

Oh. And please remember the numbers 210, 420 and 2560.

Of course, it would be very hoopy of you, if you considered supporting us, too! :DPre-order 'Early BEARD' special still available!